The Pesticide Action Network has accused the German chemicals company BASF of buying credibility for industry views within academia, after one of its employee was offered a professorship at Wageningen University in the Netherlands. BASF employee Bernhard van Ravenzwaay will officially get a professor seat at the Dutch agricultural university in exchange for BASF funding, PAN Europe said in statement issued on Thursday (2 May). The environmental organisation said van Ravenzwaay has a track record of studies published with a favourable outcome for the chemical industry, suggesting his university research will be biased. By acquiring a professorship in university, BASF might try to buy credibility for the views of industry. Recently Van Ravenzwaay started defending industry-babies such as TTC (Threshold of Toxicological Concern), which substitutes (expensive) experimental studies by statistics, PAN Europe claimed.
On its website, Wageningen University says it is "the only university in the Netherlands to focus specifically on the theme ‘healthy food and living environment’. We do so by working closely together with governments and the business community," it adds, saying it wants to expand its leadership position in this field of research by fostering “close collaboration with governmental organisations, commercial businesses, fellow institutions and universities at home and abroad". But the NGO pointed to what it describes as "unhealthy relations" in a range of joint industry programmes at Wageningen University. Among these are its Green genetics programme (with Bayer and Syngenta), and another group within the university where researchers Theo Brock and Paul van den Brink showcased pesticide industry ways to relax water standards.
According to PAN Europe, Bayer and Syngenta partly paid for a professor chair at Wageningen for van den Brink in 2008. The NGO also highlighted the fact that Brock and van den Brink sit in EU-funded institutions such as the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA). "The cases at Wageningen University are an example of a general development of university independence getting victim of company control. In less and less places in the world a real independent scientific opinion will be heard," Hans Muilerman, PAN Europe's chemicals officer said. "A critical view on a pesticide will harm their chances of getting money from the pesticide industry. We see the same in agencies such as EFSA who are less and less able to recruit independent scientists. Governments should stop forcing universities to get their money from the market. Every link to industry is the end to independence," Muilerman added.
Sources:
PAN Press release, 2 May 2013:
http://www.pan-europe.info/News/PR/130502.html
Euractiv, 5 May 2013
http://www.euractiv.com/science-policymaking/chemicals-industry-ngo-cla…
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